


An Obvious Extension

by lalaietha



Category: Kate and Cecelia - Stevermer and Wrede
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-13
Updated: 2010-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-08 22:18:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/lalaietha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Cecelia," James said, pitching his voice to firm, "what on earth is going through your head this morning?"</p><p>"Well," said his wife, and if he had still been holding his tea he might have dropped it, and if he had been foolish enough to drink it he would certainly have choked to death, when she went on, "I thought we might seduce them."</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Obvious Extension

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sherrold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherrold/gifts).



> Written as an NYR fic, though I'm the second to the prompt. *g* It is hopefully of some entertainment to the recipient!

Later, the other three would agree it was Cecy's doing to begin with. Cecy never argued with them - being as she was _perfectly content_ with how things had turned out - but at heart, it wasn't true. At heart, it was Reardon's doing, though of course she never knew.

 

*****

 

Though she swore up and down that it was an accident, James would never quite believe his wife hadn't waited until just as he was taking a drink of tea to ask, "Did you ever fall out of love with Thomas, James, or do you miss him still?"

In form and delivery, the question was perfect Cecelia. In content - as he choked and coughed around the inhaled tea, James was absolutely certain he had misheard. He stared at her, seeking with one hand for a handkerchief to wipe his mouth; Cecy looked back at him, in an even, considering sort of way that she always wore when she was thinking something through. "And I would appreciate it, James, darling," she added, forcing him to confront the knowledge that he had heard her exactly right, "if you didn't lie to me. _Or_ try to tell me you don't know what I'm talking about: that would be so tiresome." It was not only the considering look, then: it was the determined one.

James found himself profoundly apprehensive as to what precisely she had determined. He prevaricated briefly: "What would bring you to ask such a thing, Cecy?" he asked, and then he went and closed the door, after glancing briefly outside of it, grateful she had asked this question in her own boudoir, and grateful that the closed door would be a clear signal.

Cecy merely waited, with a placid air that only meant trouble, because Cecy was _only_ so calm as that when she felt her position unassailable. "Something Reardon said, actually," she replied, "when you and Thomas were wrestling with that ridiculous boat, do you remember? Kate was being fanciful and remarked you could be Greek heroes, and Reardon said, indeed, a right Achilles and Patroclus." Cecy sat on her vanity stool, her hands folded demurely, and she said, "Of course, I think she meant to be sly and have a secret joke, there being no way for her to know how Papa has always been. I have found that maids like to feel they're much more worldly than we are - and Thomas told me once they're not entirely wrong, which I _suppose_ is fair - but at any rate, I caught her meaning, even if I couldn't credit it at first. But I've been thinking since - and watching you, too, dear. You didn't, ever, did you?"

James sat down on the low couch, and tried to think of a way to answer. Cecy did this: you might try to guide and guard her but in the end she was like a little silver fish and would dart right out between your fingers at whatever it was that caught her fancy. Sometimes he despaired, but it was usually . . . a laughing, fanciful sort of despair. Knowing he might come home to find her knee deep in some pond or other, because the fancy had struck her. Or discover she'd booked them a tour of the standing stones of England. She and her father were a great deal more alike than his Cecelia ever liked to admit; Rushton only lacked his daughter's keen insight into people.

James thought to be angry, for a moment; then he thought to be stern; and then he discarded these as the rearguard action of a routed man, and said, "Cecy, you will be the death of me yet." In less than a quarter hour - considerably less - she had taken his entire world, turned it upside down, and shaken it. Again. He had not felt so unsettled since he thought that damned Bedrick was going to kill them all.

Cecelia got up and came over to sit on the very edge of the couch beside his hip. "I don't think so, James," she replied. She took his hand between both of hers. "But you still haven't answered my question - " and then, in another motion infuriatingly Cecelia-like, she moved and put a finger over his lips. "I know you love me, darling," she added, firmly. "You needn't fuss about convincing me of that. And I love you, and you know _that_. I simply want a truthful answer."

James looked at thin, white fingers about his own, and sighed. "One does not," he said, finally, "fall out of love with Thomas. One might bring oneself to hate him, but that is a different matter."

"I _thought_ so," Cecy said, seeming unwontedly pleased.

"Cecelia," James said, pitching his voice to firm, "what on earth is going through your head this morning?"

"Well," said his wife, and if he had still been holding his tea he might have dropped it, and if he had been foolish enough to drink it he would certainly have choked to death, when she went on, "I thought we might seduce them."

 

*****

 

Cecelia presented her case with appallingly forthright logic: James informed her that he would be going for a walk, and stopped on the way to find a hip-flask of bourbon. He did walk - somewhat - but only to a point he knew, out of the way and out of sight, whereupon he sat down and took probably a larger swig of the flask than was good for him, given the drinking he wasn't doing in his now-married days.

It was difficult to say whether Cecy had any idea the currents and meanings of the question she asked (set aside, and he was for the moment, the course she proposed): she could be frighteningly insightful, but on the other hand, there would be little in the way of structure for her to fasten her intuitions to. He did not, as a rule, do anything more than tell amusing stories about the Peninsula; neither did Thomas. And when circumstances left them cornered, they would both fix their tales on the absurdities, and ignore everything else.

There were any number of secrets left in Spanish towns to die. No more than a handful were suitable for the ears of young ladies, even married ones, or so the wisdom went. And a great deal more than a handful weren't suitable for anyone, really.

The simplest answer - likely the right answer - was _no._ God - no, the _right_ answer was not only "no", it was a lengthy lecture, probably, on propriety and . . . something else. This, of course, would be a futile waste of breath, and, for that matter, a waste of a good fight. Cecelia was much like Thomas that way, now that he thought of it: she would go the way she wished, at least in thought, no matter what anyone said. And her indignation at being denied might stand in place of the sun on an eclipse, if roused.

The simplest answer and likely the right one remained _no_, but once he'd finished the flask and left his memories of the war on the ground by the tree, he found Cecy curled in a window-seat with one of her treatises on journeyman-magic. He sat down by her feet, as she put down the book.

"How did you even intend to go about that, Cecelia?" he asked. And if the words might sound to someone else like he had not decided - he even meant them to be ambiguous - the light in her face told him she saw directly through him, and knew the answer was _very well_.

 

*****

Plans, Wellington had been prone to say, should be fixed enough for the purpose, and open enough to change. James supposed thinking of that was inevitable.

And in those terms, Cecy chose Schofield Castle as the theatre of battle, on the basis that the Castle was likely to have the biggest bed. Which seemed as good a line of reasoning as any other. James was conscious of feeling more pulled in Cecy's wake than ever before. Perhaps because, before, he had bothered to protest, or try to direct her course, or something like it, where this time he - simply followed.

Her question had opened up doors in his thoughts he had specifically closed, locked, barred and then even nailed shut, sometimes before they opened, and now he found them uncomfortably ajar. James found himself watching Thomas in a way he had not for years now: watched, and saw, the quick grace in motion, the easy freedom, the expressiveness in face and hands, and everything. And he found himself watching Kate in a way he had never allowed, two kinds of loyalty forcing that door closed before it had even begun to rattle, wedging it up with rags to plug any cracks: watched, and saw the dance beneath the self-claimed clumsiness, the bright beauty of each smile, and the delicate motions of her hands, even - maybe especially - when she dropped something.

Which was, perhaps, why he just followed her. The doors had been hard to close, and now they were open and the cost of closing them again would be more than he wanted to pay.

Someone had dragged Thomas into Parliament in the last month: he somehow managed to make the stories of how terribly boring it had been quite entertaining, but that was Thomas for you. His port was good, which was also Thomas, and then somewhere between one story and the next, Cecy caught Kate's hand, and her chin, and kissed her.

Which, James thought, was at least unequivocal, as signs of interest went. James sighed and drew his fingers across his eyes; Kate let out a soft, _oh_, when Cecy stopped, and Thomas' eyebrows - James glanced at him to see - were attempting to launch opening salvos against his hairline.

Cecy did her best to look composed, still holding Kate's hand, and said, "We have a proposal," very calmly.

James expected Thomas' eyebrows to climb higher, and for the tiniest slice of time they did - and then his face smoothed and the smile began to play around his mouth that had been the first thing to earn him the name "Mysterious" (and long before he had a damn thing to be mysterious about, and was mostly doing it just to annoy those he thought of as the old men who got in his way).

"Well clearly I'm going to be heartbroken," he observed, mostly to James, and over the battlement of his port, "or extremely happy, and since James doesn't look like someone gutted him this morning, I rather suspect the latter."

A flashing look of irritation - probably at her announcement preempted - chased itself across Cecy's face, but she took it in stride and retorted, "Well it seemed an obvious extension."

"Cecy - " Kate started, and then stopped. And Cecy looked suddenly uncertain, and got as far as, "Kate, but don't you - " and then she stopped, and Kate said, "Well _yes_," and blushed pink, and then, "But - " She looked at Thomas.

Thomas, of whom it could never be said was hesitant, replied, "Kate, my darling, I offered to move to India if it would make you happy - believe me when I say, I far prefer this to Calcutta." But his eyes were on James, resting, and he said, "But you're very quiet, Tarleton," and he did that on purpose. That was the _problem_ with Thomas.

James rested his arms on his knees and said, after a sigh, and with a gesture round the room, to encompass it all, "I blame you. For everything." And knew that Thomas would understand, and could hope that Cecy and Kate would forgive him the remark.

"And I am happily credited," Thomas retorted, the corner of his mouth curling up. He gave his own gesture, then, pointing with one of the fingers otherwise curled around his glass. "But if we're going to continue this discussion, we _might_ choose a better location."

James reflected that he ought to have known better to expect the Marquis of Schofield to be shocked by anything.

 

*****

 

Thomas' bed _was_ ridiculously big, unless you knew how Thomas slept, which bid fair to land anyone who shared a bed with him on the floor if he had insufficient space to expand, catlike, and fill. The memories of that, behind the newly opened doors, were nearly intrusive, so that the scent of the laid fire brought back the image of encampments, and things burning that should never be put to flame.

He put that away. Thomas locked the door; Cecy, James could see, had an arm around Kate's waist. Thomas had stolen her aside in the hallway, to murmur something unheard and unhearable in her ear, and she seemed more calm now. Perhaps more calm than James himself felt, while this reminded him of the edge of one of Thomas' endeavours, where it might either end in triumph, or in wreckage.

(He consoled himself with the memory that it was so much more often the former than the latter).

And there was permission, in Cecy's eyes, for things long delayed. Her arm was still around Kate's waist when she drew her away to the low red divan between bed and drawn curtains, in the delicate balance of words said and silence left, so that nothing went off with an explosion that might wreck them.

Maybe it was inevitable that the language of war would get back into his thoughts. He might have wondered if anything ever phased Thomas, but he knew better, much better than that. Still, his friend might have been good enough to show some of it now, instead of frowning slightly, informing James that they were both wearing far too many clothes, and then catching James in a kiss when he stepped forward to deal with his waistcoat. Which in some ways was like being struck in the head, and in others like being kicked in the stomach, and in the last like water given long after you've forgotten you were ever thirsty. Thomas got distracted from the buttons when James rested his hands on Thomas' hips, never breaking the kiss, and stepped backward enough to find the bed and get them both on it.

Thomas had never been any good at following orders, but neither had he ever been any good at being anything but a hedonist at heart: he would follow where lead, if something were in it for him, and James -

James remembered. Remembered everything, in fact. Remembered too many God-damned times they'd nearly been killed, rememberedtoo many funerals, and too many dead where there wasn't time for more than a prayer. He remembered the very first time Thomas' mouth had touched his, and his heart beat as painfully crushed now as it had then. More: sitting across the room, on the red-velvet divan, was Cecelia, was his wife. And was Kate, was Thomas' wife, and the one held the other, Cecy's arms around Kate's body, one hand resting light against Kate's thigh under her skirt, the other resting just below Kate's breast, holding her close.

And the woman he had given his oath to, at the altar, smiled at him over Kate's shoulder and mouthed, _it's all right_ and _I love you_ and then whispered something in Kate's ear that widened her eyes and quickened her breath.

And this was only a pause, that of a heartbeat, but Thomas was still Thomas and remarked, as Thomas might - but though the tone was sardonic, the words were, "If you stop now, James, I might have to kill you, and then Cecy would be very upset," and over the giggling laughter from James' wife, more from heightened nerves than anything, Thomas very firmly pulled James down to continue the kiss. And it was a good thing they had already found the bed, in this, and that Thomas was sprawled out beneath him: otherwise, he might have had to fight the urge to retaliate for that, for the tone, for everything: that would be too much, yet. If ever.

This was not the Peninsula. They were not at war. And it was gratifying to have been missed.

("Gratifying" was not the word; had she known he thought it, at this moment, Thomas beneath him and the world opened up and the ache in his chest and the answering ache in his groin now building, Cecelia would have been appalled at him. But he had never been a man of words.)

Thomas - Thomas was Thomas still, blithe and greedy and unabashedly wanton, mouth open easily to kisses and fingers more interested in finding skin to touch (James', his own, he was not particularly fussy which) than anything else, including maintaining the integrity of his partner's clothing: he took several of the buttons off James' shirt in impatience. "Servants can sew them back on," he said, at James' mild noise of protest. "That's what they're for." He pushed the shirt from James' shoulders before twisting out of his own, and then showed as little care for the repair of James' flies.

But he did pause for a moment, his face serious in a way that many people might think was unlike Thomas, but was perhaps the truest expression he might ever wear. "I missed you, James," he said, simply, generously, and then declined to give James the opportunity to answer him with words, one hand behind James' neck to claim a kiss, while the other moved to push down the last part of James' clothing and trail over his prick, and then close around it. James broke the kiss with a short gasp; his head did not quite rest on Thomas' shoulder.

"Bastard," he said, not particularly caring that he should watch his language - such considerations were a touch ridiculous, given the circumstances. He turned his head a little at Thomas darker chuckle.

"Are you going to last any useful time, old boy?" the bastard asked, but James was already smiling, slowly.

"Are you?" he retorted, his hand catching Thomas' at the wrist. And he said: "Look at the girls, Thomas."

And very unwisely, given the challenge he'd just given, Thomas did. And stilled, absolutely, even his breath going shallow.

Cecy had gotten rid of most of the rest of Kate's clothing. She was watching them: they both were, perhaps, save that Kate's eyes kept closing when she shuddered, when Cecy's mouth brushed her neck, or Cecy's hand over her breasts. And there were things about Thomas that did not, perhaps could not change, and he lost all advantage here.

"God," he breathed, and that was as close as Thomas ever got to a prayer, really. James grinned, and moved now between Thomas' legs: body pressed to body, and he bent to bite gently at the place where Thomas' shoulder met his neck.

"Look, Kate," James heard Cecy murmur, and Thomas groaned, "Oh, Hell," and James caught Thomas' jaw and pulled him back to kiss one last time. To kiss, and to press his right hand flat against the plane of Thomas' chest, over stomach and over Thomas' hip, and the scar-tissue where they dug the musket-ball out: rubbing his thumb over that once or twice, three times, made Thomas shiver, and his hips buck up. James sat back, to pull Thomas breeches down far enough for Thomas to kick them off and reach to pull him down again, entirely past artifice.

James resisted, gently - instead kissed the place between jaw and ear and murmured, "Over, Schofield," because it might not be the Peninsula but he didn't care: he'd take back what he'd left there, thank you, and bring it to live with the now, with everything, because Cecelia was perhaps the most brilliant woman ever born.

Thomas was never any good at following orders: but these weren't, James knew, not to him - not orders, but indications of how he might get what he wanted, more of what he wanted. He was content enough to move, while James reached for what he had left at the table at bedside - and followed easy enough when James pulled him over to one side, a little further, until he realized it was Kate James was positioning him to face.

James didn't really give him time to take that in, give either of them time. He was between Thomas' legs again, the inside of Thomas' thighs against the outside of his. And Thomas leaned on his forearms and breathed as James pressed one slick finger against him (and had to close his eyes, as even with the finger he pressed in, and reflect that Thomas' question was not uncalled for), and James remembered.

There was a danger, of course, letting the war come back: there were things there that shouldn't be, that were mistakes, that were dirtied in their own way. But James didn't care: he would bring back what he wanted, and here in peace it would be washed clean.

Other love, other gifts, two impossibly maddening women - these would wash it all clean.

"James has _very_ clever hands," he heard Cecy say, heard her as if at distance, as he worked two fingers in now, and Thomas pushed up against him. And he looked at her, and almost smiled because that wasn't entirely fair: her own were fair clever enough, and she had Kate's shift rucked up around her hips, and her hand between her cousin's legs. Cecy's colour was high, her breathing that of a runner only beginning her race; Kate's lips were full, and parted, and she said, "Cecy," in a breathless voice, and then, "Thomas," at the same time James withdrew his hand.

Thomas looked up to Kate, for a moment - then he groaned and let his head fall again, as James moved to take him, guiding himself in as slowly and as carefully as he could and trying to remember patience, and control, and how to breathe.

"Wait," Thomas breathed, and James rested his forehead between Thomas' shoulders and waited, impossibly, perfectly, waited for Thomas to relax around him, in the heat and tight, knowing the tension that twisted up Thomas' body, knowing that it had been, indeed, a very long time. It wasn't everything: it couldn't be, not at once. There needed Thomas over him, too, their positions reversed, for e  
everything-remembered: and there needed Cecy, and Kate, for everything gained.

"I missed you," he breathed in an answer delayed, against Thomas ear. And Thomas had found himself again enough to laugh, if breathless.

And to say, "Do you even remember how to do this, James?" which was a taunt if James had ever heard one, and one that he answered at once - and James' first thrust dragged out of him a ragged moan, and a curse he would never have used by choice in front of his wife.

There were no words, not between them for this: too long a secret, too well kept, in the quiet. Maybe that would change; maybe it was part of what would be washed clean. James shifted, pulled Thomas back up onto his knees and then pressed in again, so that he could lean over and take Thomas' prick in hand. And when he did, he saw the girls: saw Cecy had stopped, her hands now only pressing Kate back to her, holding her, as Kate's cheeks were red and her eyes locked on Thomas, and James, and her breathing fast and short. Cecy's lips were parted now, just slight, and James half-smiled at her for a heartbeat before he let her go, in his thoughts, and lost himself to the rhythm of his own body, of Thomas' around him, and his heart loud in his ears. Thomas took his own weight on one hand, and the other joined James' at his prick.

Thomas gave a strangled gasp, when he came, and that took James with him: the spasm shook the whole world, it felt as, and Thomas went slack under him.

James did not fall on top of his friend, though it was a near thing. He caught a breath or two, instead: pulled out and pulled away, just enough to let Thomas turn and fall onto his back, before James leaned back over him.

"Well," said Thomas, ignoring his own breathlessness, "there goes any hope of a hunt tomorrow, if you expected me to join you."

Kate's laugh is a little strangled; Cecy's giggle is entirely free. James doesn't dignify that with an answer, not in words: he only kisses Thomas once, lightly, before falling back himself to lie against the pillows of the bed. Thomas leaned over him to reach something of his own from the table at the bedside, before dropping a slightly damp towel, smelling faintly of rose-water, on James' stomach. James quirked an eyebrow at him, though he took it willingly enough to clean himself and set aside.

"Honi soit qui mal y pense," his friend retorted, "some spells need moonlight and Kate hates the way the incense smells - it's easier to have to hand than not." Thomas turned his head towards the girls and said, in a mild tone, "It cannot possibly be as comfortable over there as it is over here, my dears."

Cecy let Kate get up, but then caught her about the waist and turned her to kiss her. It was a thing to see, really, and James watched unashamedly: Cesy the taller, her neck bent and Kate's face turned up to meet the kiss; Cecy still mostly dressed, and Kate mostly not, and her hair coming all out of its pins. And it struck him that perhaps the loss there, in separation and in time, was no less than his own, his and Thomas' own.

Maybe more, where propriety, ignorance and innocence had barred the way, until now, so that there had never been a time when, at least a little, Cecelia Rushton and Katharine Talgarth did not miss each other desperately. When he glanced at Thomas, who had turned on his side and was watching with his own intentness, he wondered if his friend had thought the same.

There would be remedy for that now, at least.

Cecy backed Kate towards the bed, towards them, and only stopped when they reached it and Kate stumbled and sat. And Cecy looked down at her and then said, "You need to undo me, Kate," and turned and knelt so that Kate could undo the buttons of her dress - with fingers, James could see, that shook a little. She seemed to have misplaced her words, as well.

Cecelia rid herself of her clothes, and that was the only way to think of it - ridding, as an impediment, and now James recognized (underneath desire, which cloaked it a little) the set of her face, of her entire self. It was the determination his wife had when she was going to do something in face of (he sometimes said, and unfairly, many of those times) her so-called better judgement. And he might have said something - some encouraging word - save that Thomas seemed to sense he would, and elbowed him gently (for Thomas) in the ribs.

"Shut it, Tarleton," Thomas said, barely above a murmur, and neither woman heard.

Kate had moved back, and up, while James was thinking. Her eyes were as wide as a deer in poacher's headlights - wide, and entirely for her cousin, as Cecy helped her off with her shift, the last piece of cloth between them. James glanced at Thomas, and something in him relaxed, some worry he hadn't articulated to himself: his friend's face was avid, but calm, and a smile played around the corner of his mouth, as he watched his wife reach up to Cecy and Cecy bend down to meet her, mouth to her mouth and hands to her body.

There might have been memories to match these, but James let this scrape them clean and write them over: Kate's hands resting against Cecy's hair as if she dared not pull harder, with Cecy's mouth at her right breast and Cecy's fingers working up inside her, until Kate cried out in a way Thomas clearly recognized, from his sudden indrawn breath; Cecy kissing Kate at least as hard as James had ever dared kiss her, as Kate made swallowed little noises and wrapped her legs tight around Cecy's waist; and Cecy guiding Kate's hand after, to do as she had done, with Kate's boldness growing until it was Cecy's turn to give a cry; and then at last Cecy's arms around her cousin, drawing her in, breast to Kate's back, as if she might disappear.

There was something said there, for Kate's ears; James did not try to intrude by listening. Something said, and then silence for a moment, deep but not uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence in which the world rearranged itself, for good or ill, and in this case (James thought, as if warding off the Devil) it would be, must be, for good.

Thomas broke it, of course, though by action at first rather than by words: by moving until he could insinuate an arm at Cecy's hip, and draw her entirely accommodating self against him. "Why am I not surprised," he said, adding his voice to the breaking of the silence, "that this was your idea?"

"Because you know she's the one amongst us with the most sense?" Kate replied, and James tried not to laugh at her, because the arch tone she tried for was spoiled nearly entirely (if in a very fetching way) by the blush that had not yet left her cheeks.

"Sense is one word for it, certainly," Thomas said, in a musing sort of voice, and Cecy reached down and pinched him, which James felt he entirely deserved.

"Why, my lord Marquis," she said, in a mocking voice that was perhaps made sharper than it needed to be, "are you complaining?" And then she stopped and James could see, from where he lay, her head fall back a little. And it would have been a lie, he knew, to say that there was no moment of jealousy there: but it melted quickly, as it faced the absurdity of turning jealousy against someone who was also one's own.

Thomas had probably anticipated that. Damn him, James thought, in a fond sort of way.

"Nothing," Thomas replied, his hands pressing down the front of Cecy's body, "could be further from my mind, I assure you."

Cecy abandoned the verbal fencing in favour of catching Thomas' hand at its lowest point and saying, "Don't stop doing that," and Thomas didn't. Only kissed the curve of her neck while they moved, only murmured words of praise and affection into Cecy's ear, in the half-whispered, breathless voice that was Thomas in such a place, doing such a thing (and these were the memories to be washed, scalded clean).

When Kate reached out a hand to brush Cecy's cheek (Cecy's eyes closed, her lips parted in a look James knew very well), it was almost in reverence; while James watched, there was a momentary impulse, fleeting, to move in close to Thomas again, matching, to move again in his friend as his friend did in James' wife. But it was fleeting, because of a deeper understanding: there would be other times, and this was the closing of a circle.

Almost, he thought suddenly, an odd kind of spell: one of body and spirit, instead of magic. Promises and patterns.

And now he knew for absolute certain that he has spent far, far too much of his life with magicians. And he would never share the thought with Thomas: he would never hear the end of it.

But there was nothing of jealousy in the surge of desire that followed when Cecy cried Thomas' name, or the catch of Thomas' breath - or, and now he approached the edge of the circle, of the not-a-spell, in the catch of Kate's to echo. No, desire was purely desire, and one that brought him to (almost laughing) frustration with the limits of one body.

Time. That was the difference, when there was not a war, wasn't it? There was no hanging limit on time.

Kate had reached out to Cecy again, who caught her hand this time, and bit one of the fingers. Kate (there was no other word for it) squeaked, if quietly, and Thomas was smiling as he took his wife's hand from her cousin's, but only pressed it. He shifted, lifting himself a little, kissed Cecy's cheek and then pulled gently at Kate.

The girls traded places first, Cecy with a light kiss to Kate's hair (now wholly freed and falling down in waves, where Cecy's still remained braided and settled, if a little mussed); Kate stopped, beside and half-over Thomas. The kiss Thomas gave her was one of reassurance - James knew it, though neither he nor Thomas would ever have admitted there was cause to know. (There has been, James thinks sometimes, far too much magic in his life, and far too little he could do about it.)

Then the place traded was Thomas and Kate, and Kate reached out one hand to James. He caught it, kissed it in old and courtly fashion, and she smiled a little at him before tugging him closer. And if there had been an intensity to Cecy's gaze on him, and Kate's, with Thomas, it was dwarfed by what he felt in their gazes now. But he ignored them.

Kate said, in a tone of admission, "I have always wondered what it might be like to kiss you."

Thomas said, before James could say anything, "That depends something on how drunk he is at the ti - ow!" He broke off, as Cecy tugged sharply at his hair, and he gave her a greatly affronted look.

"Thank you, darling," James said, while Kate tried to swallow giggles, and Cecy looked reprovingly at Thomas.

"You're very welcome, James, darling," she replied, "but I think Kate just asked you something." And Thomas rolled his eyes at both of them, which was terribly Thomas, but James chose to ignore him in favour of Kate. Kate, who was never so fragile as sometimes she thought, and whose chosen scent was roses, against Cecy's lavender.

Comparison was inevitable - with Cecy, yes, but in some odd way also with Thomas, because there was a shaping there, and he might have felt some edge of a thought, except that the way in which Kate was most unlike Cecy was in a certain softness that drew him in - and the way she was most like Thomas, it seemed, was the easy, welcoming, complete surrender to desire, once finding it.

Her mouth was soft and opened easily to his; her arms (shorter than he was used, she being smaller) worked around his neck in encouragement; legs parted, body opening as easily as her mouth, to draw him close, and bind them all together. She said, "James," as a quiet gasp when he slid into her, and then again when he began to move: her hands moved, soft, almost fluttering, resting on his shoulders and his back, chest and face, between kisses and small noises when he touched her here and there. Her face was flushed, and that blush touched the top of her breasts and her shoulders, pink against ivory-white.

And Thomas gaze, and Cecy's, like the sun on his own skin. Closed circle, he thought, and Kate cried out this once more, and brought him with her.

Held him, after, legs around his waist and arms around his shoulders, neck, catching her breath with skin pressed to skin: he could feel her heart, as well as his. For a moment, there was a silence like the first one.

This time, it was Cecy who broke it, and by asking, "I suppose it mightn't be fair to ask _now_ how it was - kissing James - " but it was Thomas dissolving into laughter after it that shattered it. James couldn't help laughing, either - and neither, it seemed, could Kate, although she did manage to say, "Oh _Cecy_," around her laughter, while Cecy looked halfway caught between a blush and indignant, haughty affront.

Thomas had rolled onto his back with the laughter, and James to the side, Kate letting him go. Cecy settled on (somewhat fond) affront, and ignored them both. But it was Thomas who collected himself into something like composure first, pushed himself up on his elbows and surveyed them, before making his intent clear to get up. The kiss he gave Kate was soft; the kiss he gave James (James not expecting it, entirely, until Thomas was leaning over Kate to do it) was not; and the kiss he finally coaxed out of Cecy, after a moment, was light and a little teasing.

James might have thought of something in that, but Cecy said, "Where are you going?" when Thomas retrieved his breeches and his shirt.

"To arrange something to eat," Thomas replied, as if this was obvious, and then unlocked and stepped out of the door, leaving Cecy looking after him.

"Is he always like that?" she said, sounding a little disgruntled.

That Kate and he managed perfect unison, both of timing and of tone, with the words, "Oh yes," sent Kate back into giggles. James was not concerned, terribly, with what Thomas might do or who might see - Thomas, Marquis of Schofield, had always had a very particular effect with servants, wherein he halfway bought their loyalty with money and good mastery, and bought the other half with utter terror of what might happen to the disloyal maid, groom or valet of one of Britain's greatest magicians. Not that Thomas would ever make the threat aloud: it merely hung, unspoken, in the air.

With a few other contributing factors and the variations of command rather than mastery, it had been much the same with soldiers. There were secrets left in Spanish towns that would stay there, and die there, but the memory choked a great deal less.

When Thomas actually came back, it was trailed by a maid (and Cecy and Kate both went red) who briskly set down, not food, but a basin of hot water and several clean cloths; she bobbed a curtsey and took herself out, all without raising her eyes above the level of the chair-legs.

"Thomas," Kate said, chiding, and still pink.

"Oh, believe me," James muttered under his breath, "he's done worse."

"Don't be ridiculous," Thomas said at once, and his tone and answer did as James had something hoped, dispersing the last of the possible unbalance that might come.

"Oh, do tell," Cecy said almost at the same time.

"No, don't," Thomas said, pausing in picking up one of the cloths, and using it to point at James. "Or you'll regret it."

James ignored this, and said, "Well, the trouble is, there are so many instances to choose from - " and Kate was pressing her hand over her mouth to stifle the giggles.

"You could tell them in chronological order," Cecy said, brightly.

"That is a possibility," James agreed. And Thomas responded perhaps the only way he could, which was to soak the cloth and lob it directly at James' head.

**Author's Note:**

> On the slight chance that babble on composition is of interest, it may be found [at this entry of mine.](http://recessional.dreamwidth.org/83510.html)


End file.
